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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194263">Otherside</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern'>CravenWyvern</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>DS Extras [89]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Don't Starve (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Au where they escaped the Constant, Short One Shot, headcanons galore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:36:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,142</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
      <p>Something I wanted to finish, but don't have the motivation to do so anymore and I don't like seeing it collect dust with all my other wips.</p>
    </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>DS Extras [89]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Otherside</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Something I wanted to finish, but don't have the motivation to do so anymore and I don't like seeing it collect dust with all my other wips.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a knock on the door.</p><p>Wilson paused, the scratching of the pen silenced at the interruption. For a moment the house was eerily quiet, that loud echo faded and leaving even the stuffy air hesitant and a touch heavy. He hadn't even realized he had been holding his breath, not until near a full minute had passed and his chest stung from the lack of air.</p><p>He exhaled, face drawn as he stared at what he had been writing, the sketchy scribbles of some mechanical blueprint or other, but whatever train of thought he had going for him was gone now. Carefully laying the pen down, a heaved sigh escaped him in a rather unsteady way and Wilson made himself untense, rubbing his eyes and forcing himself back into the present.</p><p>It was quiet, and stayed so for a few more moments. He must be hearing things.</p><p>It was the dead of night, after all. No one ever visited this late, not unless, he supposed, there was an emergency of some sort. Which was very unlikely; no one would venture this far out of town just to get his help, and his neighbors were closer to the outskirts than him anyhow.</p><p>He heard nothing, Wilson convinced himself, another steadying breath as he brushed his hands through his hair. Just the house settling, and the low crackling from the fireplace, flickering light added to the low humming lantern he had at his desk. Too late at night to flick on the lights, and he preferred this to the bright spotlight his house turned into if he turned everything on.</p><p>Even after all these years he'd still be as inconspicuous as possible. Nothing to get him out here, but the threat wavered at the edges of his subconscious and living with it was second nature now. He vaguely remembered having lights filling the rooms of his home at night for days when he had first woken up in the attic, but that was long passed now and the dark wasn't as terrifying as it had once been.</p><p>He still couldn't sit out under the stars by his lonesome, but otherwise he's been getting better.</p><p>In the silence, as he pressed the palms of his calloused hands to his eyes, the sparking waves of static light behind his eyelids dancing about, Wilson let another tensed breath escape him and his shoulders drooped.</p><p>It must be late, and he knew he was rather tired. Staying up like this was for his younger self, and the weariness that had come around and settled now in him was starting to make this whole "night owl" business not quite what he liked doing.</p><p>Perhaps he should turn in for the night-</p><p>And then came another round of knocking, this time far more firm.</p><p>One, two, three, and then a hesitant fourth. The silence after it filled in thick, not quite dead air but certainly foreboding, and after a moment Wilson pushed himself to his feet, chair skidding against the wooden floor and catching to the edge of the rug. </p><p>The ensuing rush of paranoia he eased down, hands to the chair for a brief moment of counting to ten, evening his breaths, before he straightened back up and walked his way to the front door.</p><p>This late at night, of all things, and Wilson had no clue, no guesses on who it could be. Not even the few miles away neighbors contacted him at night, though he was expecting a brief visit and pick up in the coming evening, he had finished a few little things for that particular family's-</p><p>Another round of knocking made him shake his head from his thoughts, pick up the pace as he rose his voice, cutting off that dreadful sound.</p><p>"I'm coming, I'm coming! It's the middle of the goddamn night, give me a minute!"</p><p>Brief paranoia flashed back in, from old memories and nightmares, but wolves and arachnids did not bother with knocking and anyone local with backyard pigs was on the other side of town, there were no swamps nearby, very little goats to boot and certainly no walruses this far inland-</p><p>The sudden off kilter thought process made him go dizzy for a moment, light headed right before the door as Wilson had to steady himself to the wall, and for a moment his heart pounded in his chest and he felt a terrible foreboding before him. His gaze rose to the wooden thing standing between him and whatever was out there, knocking and waiting, and for a brief moment Wilson flagged at the idea of even opening it, of even risking it.</p><p>And then he sucked in a breath of air, air from his home and not something foriegn or unknown or, even worse, well known, and he shook himself back together. </p><p>It's been ages since he had done such a mental checklist, tracking the dangers that didn't exist here, <i>reassuring</i> himself that all was fine, and the suddenness of doing so had thrown him off track.</p><p>It must just be his fatigue, Wilson reasoned. These last few nights he had stayed up far too late, and he's been getting those dreadful headaches again, though no pins and needles in his fingertips just yet so no worry of having to make a trip to town, and this must just be some passerby at the door, perhaps asking for directions even.</p><p>At midnight, with the only road out here being the dirt one to his home before meeting to the one that traveled to town. But Wilson steeled himself, shoved that nervousness out of the way, and forced himself to ignore the thick air that seemed to be trying to keep him away from his own front door.</p><p>The threat of danger still lurked, but even if he was getting a little along in the years Wilson was certain he could take any hooligan that tried to raid his home. He's taken down far worse in the past.</p><p>Hand on the handle, the cold chill of autumn outside freezing the bronze metal, and Wilson took a last steadying breath and carefully pushed the door open before whoever was out there lost their patience and knocked again.</p><p>For a moment, with the dark and shadows and sliver of the moon in the sky, he couldn't see much but a tall silhouette, one that jolted something in the back of his mind and scraped painstakingly at his foggy memories, achingly familiar.</p><p>And then the light behind him flickered as Wilson flipped on the front hallways light, and he found himself squinting at a man.</p><p>Who squinted just as much down at him, face pulled low in sour wrinkles and salted dark silver pepper hair and hollow sunken eyes, not at all the sort one would want to greet at the door at midnight, alone at home and in the middle of the woods.</p><p>"Er, hello? What can I…" Wilson briefly looked the fellow up and down, hand still on the door handle and ready to pull it closed if he so needed to. There was no more of that foreboding air, gone in the wind of the doors sway, but the suspicion had settled with a bit more finality now that the terror was dispelled. "...What do you want?"</p><p>The man blinked at him, his eyes not quite narrowed but more squinted, as if having difficulty seeing, and he seemed to just barely sway on his feet, the vagabond look about him, from the seemingly oddly dull clothing that didn't fit his thin frame to the exhausted, strained drain of his face, had near sheared away whatever familiarity Wilson had almost felt when he had first opened the door.</p><p>And then, the man spoke.</p><p>"...It has been awhile, hasn't it, Higgsbury?"</p><p>The silence after stretched, as the man turned his gaze to eye the doorframe, the dark porchlight and seemingly seeing his surroundings for the first time, an almost lazy, apathetic slow movement.</p><p>Wilson stood there, feeling as if he had just gotten punched in the gut and the wind knocked out of him as his brain finally coughed up through the fog a <i>name.</i></p><p>"M...Maxwell?"</p><p>That snapped the man's attention back, a sudden sharpness to his eyes that hadn't been there before, and with a bewildering nauseous turn Wilson had almost expected the gaze to be pitch black, shiny empty void things, but all that was there was a dull brown, a lighter gray of perhaps hazel of some sort and a faded misty hint to the iris.</p><p>Still, the name was enough to knock some sense into him and Wilson suddenly felt very, very weak in the knees, leaning heavy to the door as a wheezing laugh escaped him.</p><p>He couldn't form any words for a moment, a sudden wash of memory as that fog that's crept up on him suddenly tore away, or was blown away maybe, and the influx was a bit overwhelming for his mental state right now. It took him a moment to realize the other man had gotten closer, hand to his shoulder and looking a bit lost as well, but that drooping almost scowl that pulled on his eyes didn't leave. </p><p>The sharpness had eased up a bit, however, and his voice wasn't as strong or deep as Wilson remembered, that timbre sounded weaker, faded, but it was most definitely <i>Maxwell.</i></p><p>"And here I had thought you'd not remember me." He sounded grave, a tinge of concern as he helped push Wilson back to stand upon his own two feet, not slide down the door as his legs trembled, felt as if they had turned to jelly underneath him. "I should thank my luck that you're not like the others."</p><p>"The, the others…?" Flashes of memory, faces, more names, and Wilson's head was reeling in a not too pleasant way, spiking his headache as he winced and put a hand to his head, still feeling that gloved weight atop his shoulder. "I thought...I couldn't, find them?"</p><p>The confusion was almost too much, it's been too long since he had last thought about this, or even remembered it had happened, it's been <i>ages</i>, and now suddenly having these memories shove their way to the forefront had him dizzily trying to connect the pieces, even as they rose one by slow one from the fog of time and memory.</p><p>"Yes, I suppose there were a few who were lost." Maxwell eased him gently forward, back through the doorway before suddenly halting in a tilt that almost had Wilson lose his balance. </p><p>His face curved in a deeper scowl of discomfort, eyes darting about as if feeling watched, and his voice was clipped short for a moment as his hand squeezed a bit hard to Wilsons shoulder.</p><p>"I…May I come in?"</p><p>The hesitance felt odd, as if he's had to learn the hard way in asking, but Wilson was currently drowning under memories that were certainly his but felt so displaced they near left him breathless and the only thing he could do was nod, jaw grit tight at the pounding ache of his ensuing headache.</p><p>Thankfully he didn't have to say anything else, hand at his shoulder pushing him along, slowing down the stride as he got his sense about him enough to guide the both of them to the kitchen, to the dining table and chairs, and once there he waved away whatever help the other man seemed to be hesitantly inclined to give and got himself into a chair, sagging down as he held his head between his hands.</p><p>"...I suppose this was a great shock to you."</p><p>Wilson raised a hand, whistled in and out a breath as he forced himself to speak through the pain and his tightly grit teeth.</p><p>There was the telltale buzzing static to his fingertips now, a heavy air that had settled on him the moment this had happened, but right now he couldn't even <i>think</i> about it.</p><p>"Just, give me a moment, Maxwell. Please."</p><p>The other man went silent, save for the quiet scrape of the chair over wooden floorboards, and Wilson forced himself to count his breaths, even them out. </p><p>Once that was done, once the headache pulled back and his heartrate calmed and only the barest static buzzed in the background, damn it all he had thought he'd been doing good at keeping his stress down, he hadn't <i>known</i> it would only need the slightest trigger, once the memories reshuffled in his brain and settled and Wilson could finally <i>think</i> he slowly raised his head back up.</p><p>Maxwell Carter sat before him, looking far older than before, far more worn down than Wilson has literally ever seen him and severely out of sorts in that getup, but his memory did not lie and Wilson knew that this was still the former Nightmare King of the Constant, long displaced and, supposedly, either long dead or long lost.</p><p>Moving slow, putting his elbows onto the table and hands pressed together, lightly held close to his mouth, Wilson considered the reality before him.</p><p>"...I couldn't find you, any of you."</p><p>His voice sounded tired, strained now with the aura he could feel buzzing its way around him, but he still had time, if he kept himself calm.</p><p>Maxwell's voice droned in a hauntingly familiar way, but dulled, pitched and faded, roughed up wrong, just that hint of wrongness keeping the image, the memory placement out of order.</p><p>"It is to be expected, since we all arrived at our proper times." The old man leaned a bit in his chair, still tensed, still drawn thin and ragged and still, still yet hiding that spring loaded motion Wilson himself knew he once had, the one that would get him off his feet and into battle in only an instant. "Not even a second was lost, in the before and after. We all came back, right on time."</p><p>"I...I did notice that, but I never thought…" Wilson trailed off, looking elsewhere, to the kitchen window and the darkness of night outside, and he remembered, vaguely, of the night when he had come to in the attic upstairs.</p><p>The...portal, yes, it had fallen apart, rust eating through the metal hull with alarming speeds and wires popping and lightbulbs cracking, shattering apart, as if undergoing the sudden scale of centuries upon centuries passing it by, but nothing else in that room was touched, including himself. He had sat there, coughing in the ensuing cloud of dust as time ate away the great machine, and eventually lugged himself downstairs in a dizzy fog of shock.</p><p>He, didn't quite remember if this was what was supposed to happen. If he had intended to get out, alone, or even to torture himself in thinking that, maybe, he had abandoned everyone, that it had only worked for him, the others were still locked away in that hellish world-</p><p>Wilson didn't have the resources to just up and start searching, but even then he could have tried, he could have walked, he could have done something, <i>anything.</i></p><p>But, even that option was barred to him when he was overcome with the leftover fringes of panic and terror and tremors that just wouldn't leave his hands, and even just trying to leave his home was a mortifyingly impossible idea. He was finally back, and at every turn in the dark hallways he expected teeth or claws or shadow hands to bind and squeeze him to near death and <i>he just couldn't do it.</i></p><p>Eventually someone from town actually did come check up on him, if a month or so late of course, and he hadn't opened the door for the idle, somewhat bored police when they had come a'knocking due to the fact that he had hidden himself away in his room and was trying to not think of numerous ways he has died and what could possibly be out to get him next in complete and hysterical delusion and trauma.</p><p>Or, well, that was what he was told when he got more lucid, finding himself in town being tended to by some doctor he did not know the name of and suddenly the town's new curiosity. He counted his lucky stars that no one was especially keen in admitting him anywhere, since that would then take the towns one interesting thing out from its gossip, and the fact that he was far more comprehensible when surrounded by other people.</p><p>That was...years ago, really. It certainly wasn't 1920 any longer, that was for sure.</p><p>"...I did try to look for the others." Maybe he was lying a bit, maybe he wasn't, but in the end the thought of leaving town into some other <i>unknown</i>, even a world he was born into, felt so daunting, too daunting, and he still remembered when he had fully expected the next person to talk to him to be a sentient upright pig.</p><p>They had been sympathetic, actually, when he'd ramble on about impossible things, about the Constant, before he remembered himself and shut up about it before someone decided to mark him and send for an institutes attention. He knew that his reputation henceforth was still a bit odd, or maybe they just thought of him as the town delusional mad fellow that lived a little too far from town to worry about, and, well.</p><p>He hadn't painted himself as dangerous either, so that must have set him in a few good books. And, the fact that he so suddenly seemed to get along with the town's children.</p><p>Before all this he knew they had been especially unkind, and told many a ghost story of the weirdo hermit a few miles away, but once he was deemed well enough to be sent home he had a few chance encounters in the streets and even those older bullys seemed to recognize that something had changed.</p><p>Or, maybe, it was just the plain old fact he had been able to drag some little troublemaker off the street and away from some vehicles wheels in a coincidence encounter that would have ended terribly bad had he not been there.</p><p>Maybe the world was trying to apologize to him, for all that he has lived in the Constant. Or, maybe, he was still just hyper aware and alert enough to act on a child in dangers way.</p><p>"And you found nothing, correct?" Maxwell had his arms folded, watching with that set in scowl but it didn't look as harshly firm or even idle as before, entirely neutral. At Wilsons little nod, confirmation, the old man heaved a sigh and gave his own short jerk of a nod, the tense air about him still held tight in place as he spoke. "That would be the timeline then, as I expected from the beginning. Not all of the others came in at the same time as you; in fact, hardly any of them are from this specific time."</p><p>"The 1900s?"</p><p>"The '20s, specifically. A little before, a little after, and a great many before and after our times."</p><p>Wilson chewed on that thought a moment, the buzzing static having drawn far back now to his relief, and now thoroughly calmed perhaps he was in luck for tonight. He still would need to take a trip to town tomorrow, he was low on that medication, but hopefully nothing would end up happening.</p><p>A memory, faint and faded, rose up like a bubble in his mind's eye and Wilson turned his gaze to the other man, catching his completely normal looking eyes and giving him a narrowed look.</p><p>"...You came in from the early 1900s, right? 190-"</p><p>"1906, yes." Maxwells voice was more like an exhaled breath, a hint of exasperation and irritation as he idly picked at the sleeves of his worn coat, still at odds to the image of what the man had looked like for unaccountable time in Wilsons head. He didn't seem particularly keen to continue the thought, finally breaking the eye contact and looking disinterestedly about the kitchen instead. "...I thought your home would have more dust about it."</p><p>Wilson ignored the comment completely, brow knitted up in thought as he spoke, headache dull and aching behind his eyes and wrapped about his skull.</p><p>"Maxwell, that was more than 20 years ago."</p><p>"24 years, actually." The old man spoke up lightly, still avoiding Wilsons gaze as he looked idly to the ceiling. "A lot of time between then and now, really."</p><p>"That's….Maxwell, how old are you?"</p><p>That got a more proper response, a dull glare snapped back at him and the tightened tenseness coming back, his crossed arms visibly going stiff. </p><p>"It's not polite to ask that of someone."</p><p>"I…" Wilson rubbed his scruffy face, tried to get his thoughts in order. He's forgotten just how much the old man was prone to distracting and derailing conversations, or just how plain stubborn he could be. "Here, do you remember how old I am?"</p><p>"In your late 30s, I believe." There was still that air of prickling offense, and yet that carelessness, that light feeling, as if the old man wasn't taking this all too seriously. He made a half waving gesture, a shrug of his shoulders. "Somewhere around that point, I never truly cared to remember-"</p><p>"Maxwell, I'm almost 50."</p><p>That stopped the man in his tracks, voice caught in his throat as he froze, blinking almost owlishly at Wilson. And then, there was an odd moment, as if he had just had a very unpleasant thought come to mind, and Maxwell tore his gaze away and glared at the far wall, shoulders pulled up and jaw grit tight.</p><p>"...I knew that."</p><p>"Right." Wilson eyed the man, eyed the way he held himself, the heavy wrinkles of his face and the sunken in, paleness of his skin, the light fade of veins and how hollowed out he truly looked, how thin and frail. Time didn't seem to have been kind to him.</p><p>The silence after felt oddly familiar, in a  disjointed way his more faded memories couldn't quite tie together, and both men sat in the quiet for a few minutes, listening to the quiet tick tock of Wilson's wall clock. He briefly glanced up to it, noting that it was nearly one in the morning.</p><p>"...The others." Wilson's voice drew back the old man's attention, who side eyed him tentatively, but he kept his tone quiet, serious. "If you're here, then then the others are too."</p><p>"The ones of our time, yes. Unfortunately, there are a few long past or long in the future we won't be getting into contact with anytime soon."</p><p>Wilson thought on this a moment, a creeping sense of despair tugging at the edges of his mind. "Who-"</p><p>"Don't ask." Maxwells voice was sharp, cutting off Wilsons question, and he seemed to have relaxed minutely back down, turning his head to stare him in the eye. "I may know more than I should, but I don't remember everything anymore. Some of the others are lost to us, and there is nothing we can do about it."</p><p>That sent a lump to settle in Wilson's throat, and vaguely those faces and names were rising to his brain but he could hardly remember them anymore, hardly even visualize them anymore.</p><p>All these years, and he's near completely forgotten about them all. The people he lived with, fought together with, died with, and he could hardly put a faded name to an even more faded face.</p><p>Yet, even still, something that had been hidden in his consciousness and sitting there like a bristling lump of half memory rose up his throat, and Wilson squinted as he tried to force the name, the half image out of him, coax it to life as he finally stuttered it out.</p><p>"What, what of Web...Webber?" </p><p>The image flashed, bloomed and he oh so suddenly remembered the half spider, half child, bristling legs and large pale eyes and mandibles and teeth and spidery limbs and ragged voice and innocent trust, the playing and learning and nodding along whenever Wilson was explaining something or other about the, the, the alchemy engines, yes, how excited they would get trying to introduce their spidery friends and chattering all night long if they had gotten their claws on sugary treats, telling Wilson about this and that and everything else-</p><p>"...I had hoped you wouldn't ask."</p><p>The serious tone broke Wilson out of his memories, blinking and shaking his head briefly to get his present thoughts in order, aggravating the headache a good deal for a moment before he had his hand pressed to his temple and easing it back with tempered breaths.</p><p>Maxwell wouldn't meet his eye, gaze to the floor instead, his eyes dull and focused on something other than the ground; his own memories distracted him, and Wilson sat in the bated silence, that foreboding rising back up again with a chained grief he hasn't yet dared to touch ever since he had found himself back home, alone.</p><p>He had promised Webber, so long ago, that he would get them back home. He would get everyone back home, but he had been specific then, he had even made a pinkie swear with them, but…</p><p>The child had thought they'd be arriving with him. That they would live with him now, forever and ever, with their entire family even, and Wilson hadn't had the heart to ask them if they remembered their real mother and fathers faces. He knew they sometimes made remarks, tilted their head and clicked all their spidery noises and waved their mandibles and limbs about, made an offhanded comment on what their father used to do, what their grandfather had worn, how stale food reminded them of their mother, but otherwise they never spoke at great lengths of their previous family life.</p><p>Webber had seemed to be quite happy with the rest of the survivors, a little family of their own in a world that had chewed them up and then spat them out, inhuman and yet still all themself.</p><p>"That is not something I wish to speak to you about first and foremost." Maxwell spoke evenly, another distraction as he moved the conversation along, but this time Wilson let him. Something about the air, about these memories of Webber, bode great ill. "I wanted to talk on how you so suddenly seemed to remember me."</p><p>"You said something, earlier, about the others not knowing you?" </p><p>"Yes. It was a bit of a problem, really, but I'm in luck with you it seems." </p><p>Wilson leaned forward a bit, gave the old man a hard look as a thought came to his mind.</p><p>"I only did after you spoke, and otherwise I haven't really...thought, about any of this for a long time. Why is it that you seem to remember all of it?"</p><p>"Not all of it, I've already told you." Maxwell's tone grew a bit irritable, but it evened out as he adjusted himself in his seat, straightening up a moment as he fiddled with something in his coat. "But, I suppose I have been extremely lucky in this regard, or at least didn't draw the short straw. After all, I've had a bit of help for all these years."</p><p>And with that he drew out a book from within his worn coat, gently placing it atop the table between them.</p><p>It was an unassuming black tome, no markings, pale silvery pages that must have been tipped with something or other, and for a moment Wilson couldn't quite identify it.</p><p>Then Maxwell opened it up, let the pages drift by lazily, almost as if moving by itself and yet not quite, and the name rose on the tip of his tongue.</p><p>"The Codex Umbra?" He looked up at the old man, met his eye as Maxwell nodded solemnly to him.</p><p>"It is far emptier now than it has ever been, and the words do not speak to me as they once have, but…" Maxwell trailed off a moment, the brief silence letting Wilson watch as pages upon pages of empty white drifted past the man's hands, the slightest faint movement made to turn them. "Even a glimpse of it is enough to remind me of near all that had happened in that other world."</p><p>His voice had gone into a whisper, a sad soft thing that had Wilson leaning a bit more as to catch properly, and yet still the passing pages held no pictures, no half invisible passageways or Latin words upon words, nothing at all.</p><p>The name of it settled on its visage, and yet Wilson was sure it was missing something. When he reached out his hand Maxwell paused, thin leather gloves not quite hiding the slightest of trembles to how he held himself, but Wilson was not aiming to browse the stark empty pages.</p><p>He carefully folded it back, allowed the dark cover to close once more in the silence between him and the long former King, and it was as blank and empty as it's insides. The calluses on his fingertips prevented him from truly feeling any sort of texture, and the bubbled brief flash of imagery in his head, not fingers but darkened <i>talons</i>, it made him squint his eyes and feel the slightest bit light headed, dizzy.</p><p>"...There was...it looks...different."</p><p>The other man was quiet, patient as he folded his hands in his lap, and Wilson glanced up at him, palm flatly pressed to the middle of the old tomes dark, smooth cover.</p><p>"My mark is no longer tied to it; the Codex is not under my possession any longer." At Wilsons confused, inquiring look Maxwell heaved a sigh, looked away as his thin fingers curled together in a loose hold with each other. "I had once carved my sign into it, but when I first came to it was as blank as the day I had first found it. The book is not mine any longer."</p><p>A pause, and with Wilson's face not clearing up with understanding still the old man hissed a low breath from between his teeth, the slightest hint of rolling his eyes.</p><p>"If I misplaced it, the Codex would not return back to me. I am no longer it's owner, nor confidant or friend."</p><p>That made Wilson blink down at the book, then quickly lift his hand up and away from where he had been laying it upon the cover. There had been an odd warmth rising up under his palm, prickling his skin, and Maxwell's words were still unclear in a basic understandable way, but half memories still arose to the forefront of his aching mind and Wilson felt a vague hint of respect for the old tomes presence.</p><p>Or, maybe it was fear. It's been too long, and he couldn't figure his thoughts out in an order he could completely understand. Too much time has passed, and his memories, arriving as they were, were atrophied and long faded.</p><p>"So...so you remember everything-" At the sudden upturn of irritation in the older man's face Wilson quickly amended himself, "-<i>almost</i> everything, because of the Codex?"</p><p>He folded his arms to his chest as he leaned back and watched Maxwell reach out and pull the book back to himself, holding it in thin, slightly trembling gloved hands. The old man pulled it close, as if to cradle it, and his expression was unreadable but in his eyes was an odd hint of melancholy.</p><p>"I believe so, yes. When I was aware once more and recognized it in my hands, I remembered." He let out a quiet sigh, and his gaze dragged away from the book, hands tightening atop it, and his voice grew solemn. "So too did Charlie."</p><p>Wilson blinked, paused as his brain halted at the new - familiar? - name, and after a moment he pressed a hand to his face, shock layering over that horrid static pressure now as old memory forced its rolling way to the forefront of his mind.</p><p>"C...Charlie? The Queen, Charlie?" When he looked back over Maxwell was watching him with that neutral look again, but it wasn't nearly as well masked as it used to be, somehow, and the grief underneath was bared raw and clear.</p><p>But Wilson still couldn't quite wrap his mind around this concept, this sudden flux of memory, and it was something he's always <i>known</i> but has so long forgotten that it felt peculiar, unbalanced now in actually acknowledging it. </p><p>"The Nightmare Queen Charlie, that Charlie?" </p><p>"Yes." Sighed Maxwell, and his tone was not astounded or shocked or anything really, only slow and dull and full of a sadness that felt nearly nostalgic as Wilson recognized it. "She arrived back alongside me, just as how we both were taken all that time ago together. The ensuing earthquake wasn't quite a fond welcome back, but in the end I had supposed that all's well that ends well."</p><p>Wilson opened his mouth, confused by the topic of earthquakes and welcome backs, but Maxwell just shook his head, laid the Codex in his lap and heaved another age worn sigh as he continued on.</p><p>"But, there never was a grand finale. She remembered as well as I, and she...had no fond memories or dreams left."</p><p>He grew quiet, sullen, and Wilson processed this in the ensuing silence between them, the soft tick tock of the kitchens clock the only ambient sound to echo over them. The house minutely settled, groaned silently in its own ways he was familiar with, having lived here for many years now, and yet…</p><p>He's lived lives far longer than any mortal man should have ever been given the chance to. </p><p>And now Wilson could hardly remember any of it.</p><p>He raised his gaze from the table, back to the old man, far older than Wilson could truly remember ever seeing him, the sight so odd and out of place to almost send back the height of the headache, but all Maxwell did was breath a quiet sigh, eyes back to his book, holding it firm and close and thoughts drifting away from the present as time ticked on.</p><p>Vaguely, this felt almost familiar, sitting together in each other's company and lost in their own thoughts. It was odd, and out of place, but it felt comforting right now, feeling that nostalgia and tied connection that he's forgotten all about after so many years of learning how to live life normal once more.</p><p>Wilson would always be the weird old hermit on the outskirts of town, but his spookier, more insidious reputation from when he had first moved here was long gone now, replaced by something a bit warmer. It didn't offend him too much that many of the younger folk in town, especially the ones working the stores he had to buy supplies from once or twice a week, often called him an eccentric old coot. The superstitions had turned softer, and his inventive work, while not as theatrical as he had once envisioned, certainly helped the local farms out a good bit.</p><p>Enough that he was making a living on their requests. Maybe it wasn't at all what he ever dreamed for himself, but after that infinite looping of a lifespan in the shadow world...Wilson was sort of ready to sit down and relax for a little bit longer. His growing age was creeping up on him, and regret showed its face sometimes, but as this life shrouded the old in fog and mist he found himself for the most part content.</p><p>He didn't <i>have</i> to make something big and outlandish and world changing anymore; his life had more value in living the way he wished than trying to dance a dangerous waltz with fate. He was long done with that nonsense.</p><p>And yet, here was Maxwell, sitting at his table in his home after over twenty years of radio silence and fading memories, and Wilson thought about it, and what his life has become, for a little bit longer. </p><p>When he spoke, it was quietly, spurred on by the silent, hidden grief the old man before him held within himself, and he did not poke or pry, did not wish to; it was only a simple gesture of half forgotten companionship.</p><p>"...What happened?"</p><p>Maxwell visibly took a deep, steadying breath, and even from across the table Wilson could hear that oh so familiar rattle, a heavy inhale accompanied by a long, draining exhale stuttered through with wheezing air, and the old man closed his eyes, settled his hands atop his old book, and started to speak.</p>
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